I came down with something yesterday morning (not Swine Flu H1N1) that knocked me off my feet for the last 24 hours or so. Feeling much better now, but still backlogged with things I should have gotten done yesterday.
October 28, 2009
Sorry for the reduced rate of posting
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Updated “powers of ten” visual aid
Use the slider at the bottom to dive down, down, down.
H/T to Felicia Day for the link.
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Toronto FC also looking for new head coach
Hmmm. First Middlesbrough fires their top guy, now Toronto FC does the same. Of course, the situation is different, in that Middlesbrough is still in the top few spots of the Championship, while Toronto just got blown out 5-0 and missed out on the playoffs again. This is from a letter Mo Johnson sent out to the Toronto FC fan base yesterday:
I share your disappointment that we missed the Playoffs and I am still devastated by the manner of the performance at New York on Saturday. In all my years as a player and manager I never have seen a meltdown like this. I can tell you we are only one point away from the Playoffs but in the context of a 5-0 blowout? That doesn’t give me any comfort.
This morning I announced that Chris Cummins will be leaving the club and the search will start right away for a new head coach. I want to thank Chris for the job he has done since taking over as interim head coach at the end of April. When John Carver went it left us with a hole and I think under the circumstances Chris did a hell of a job. I think he is going to be a very good coach one day but I’ve known for a couple of weeks now that he wanted to be closer to home. We want all of the other members of our coaching staff to stay.
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October 27, 2009
Statistical measurements are important
So why, especially right now, have the US government’s key players in the public health arena stopped counting swine flu cases?
Part of the mystery comes from a federal government in such a tizzy to spread its vaccine and declare “national emergencies” that it doesn’t think it’s necessary to keep counting. Via CBS News:
In late July, the CDC abruptly advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, and stopped counting individual cases. The rationale given for the CDC guidance to forego testing and tracking individual cases was: why waste resources testing for H1N1 flu when the government has already confirmed there’s an epidemic?
Given that regular seasonal flu causes thousands of deaths annually, you’d think it would be good statistical discipline to count the cases of H1N1 separately, both the gauge the severity of the disease and to chart the effectiveness of the vaccination program. Lumping seasonal flu and “flu-like symptoms” together with H1N1 seems a big step backward from normal public health practice.
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The Guild Halloween special
No embedding this time, so you’ll just have to follow the link.
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October 26, 2009
Must be “British military” week – MoD backs down on Territorial Army cutbacks
Sometimes, calling attention to a stupid move can cause the government to reconsider. As I mentioned several days back, the British Ministry of Defence was considering huge training cutbacks for the army’s reserve formation, the Territorial Army. The opposition in Parliament appear to have forced the government to at least a partial backdown:
Ministers have scaled back planned cuts to the Territorial Army and made concessions over their training after fierce criticism from the opposition.
The Ministry of Defence wanted to cut £20m from the TA budget and halt all training for six months except for those due to be sent to Afghanistan.
But it now says every unit will get one night’s training a month while the TA budget will not be cut by as much.
The Conservatives said the plans were a “shambles” and should be dropped.
The Lib Dems said the government had shown poor judgement and that the move could do long-term damage to the TA.
One night per month is still less than what is necessary, but at least it provides some continuity. Back in the mid-1970s, the Canadian government tried something similar with their reservists. Our officers and senior NCOs paraded without pay for months to ensure that the junior ranks were paid for training. It was a sacrifice on their part that shouldn’t have been necessary, but it did eventually force the government to re-instate something more like normal training activity.
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An alternative spending plan for Britain’s MoD
Lewis Page looks at the Ministry of Defence and comes up with innovative ways to both save money and increase military capabilities:
Under the plan as laid out in the Times, the Ministry of Defence would still buy the two planned new carriers, to be dubbed HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales. However the Prince of Wales would not be operated as a strike carrier with a force of jets; instead she would be a “commando carrier”, a floating forward-mounting airbase full of marines, helicopters and drones. This would mean no need to replace HMS Ocean, the navy’s current helicopters’n’marines ship — which would, according to the Thunderer, cost £600m in the 20-teens. (That seems pretty steep as Ocean herself only cost £150m in the mid ’90s).
This is the same story I linked to yesterday, although I said I suspected that the MoD had probably decided that their best plan was to scrap the carriers altogether. Part of the problem is that the Royal Navy can’t depend on the Royal Air Force to join with them in the larger purchase of aircraft:
It has long been known that the RAF doesn’t want to replace its own Harrier force — it would rather spend that money upgrading as many of its Eurofighter Typhoons as it can. The horrifyingly expensive Typhoon was designed as a pure air-to-air fighter, and at the moment it mostly still is — though a few RAF ones have been given an “austere” bombing capability.
The RAF would like to rebuild and re-equip as many of its largely irrelevant Typhoons as possible, giving them such things as trendy electronically-scanned radars and air-launched cruise missiles of various sorts. This would, perhaps, enable the Typhoon force to tackle tough enemy air-defence networks of the sort possessed by nations such as Iran and Russia.
There’s another over-priced item on the MoD budget that could be cut without seriously impacting military capabilities:
But there are many better ways to cut money from the MoD than crippling our new carrier force. To give just one example, our new fleet of refurbished De Havilland Comet subhunters (sorry, “Nimrod MRA4s”) will cost at least £700m a year to operate. If we put the whole Nimrod force on the scrapheap for which they are so long overdue right now, by the year 2019 we will have saved the £7bn needed to buy the missing eighty-odd JSFs for our second carrier — and the Prince of Wales isn’t actually going to be afloat much before then, so that’s not a problem.
[. . .]
There are many, many other such stories. We could buy cheap Sky Warrior auto-drones off the shelf rather than expensive Watchkeepers. We could equip the carriers properly and so buy cheaper F-35 C tailhook planes rather than pricey B-model jumpjets — this would save money straight off, and save a fortune on the vital carrier radar planes. Indeed, we could buy much cheaper Super Hornets to begin with, if we wanted to save a lot of cash. We could bin the expensive, feeble A400M transport and buy nice cheap C-17s instead. Rather than upgrading squadrons of Eurofighters into superbombers at a cost of billions we could buy a force of vastly more cost-effective turboprop strike planes to back our troops in Afghanistan. The list goes on.
I rather agree about the A400M . . . although Britain isn’t paying as much as South Africa for their planes.
Related: Strategy Page looks at the costs involved in refitting current USN aircraft carriers, and in designing and building the next generation of CVNs.
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QotD: Neither full veritas nor much lux
Notwithstanding all this, The Cartoons That Shook the World is an informative read. But you won’t find the actual cartoons in it. There’s a cartoon mocking George W. Bush; there’s a death threat against the cartoonists. But Yale University Press refused to publish Klausen’s book as she submitted it — with the 12 Danish cartoons. Yale ordered her to remove the cartoons, citing unnamed “experts” who claimed the book “ran a serious risk of instigating violence.” Several American newspapers, like The Philadelphia Inquirer, published the cartoons without incident. Yale has had no actual threats, but it pre-emptively surrendered. If Klausen wanted to live up to Yale’s motto — “light and truth” — she would have done what the entire editorial staff of the New York Press did in 2006 when their publisher vetoed their reprinting of the cartoons: They resigned en masse.
Given Klausen’s burning derision for Fogh Rasmussen’s decision to stand for freedom, it’s no surprise she collapsed immediately herself, academic integrity be damned. Her surrender — and Yale’s — is not a detail but a central part of the story, for it is exactly the outcome desired by the Danish imams, the Saudi diplomats and their chorus of rioters.
Ezra Levant, “Review: The Cartoons that Shook the World, by Jytte Klausen Cartoon logic”, The Globe and Mail, 2009-10-24
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A partial answer about increasing body weight
Here are some useful images that help to explain why North Americans have been getting heavier over the last few decades:
Over the past few decades, portion sizes of everything from muffins to sandwiches have grown considerably. Unfortunately, America’s waistbands have reacted accordingly. In the 1970s, around 47 percent of Americans were overweight or obese; now 66 percent of us are. In addition, the number of just obese people has doubled, from 15 percent of our population to 30 percent.
While increased sizes haven’t been the sole contributor to our obesity epidemic, large quantities of cheap food have distorted our perceptions of what a typical meal is supposed to look like. These portion comparisons, adapted from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s (NHLBI) Portion Distortion Quiz, give a visual representation of what sizes used to be compared to what they are today.
H/T to John Scalzi for the link.
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October 25, 2009
Royal Navy carrier plans: going, going . . .
A report in The Guardian walks a bit further down the road to the increasingly likely end of aircraft carrier operations in the Royal Navy:
Defence chiefs are considering scrapping plans to have two large aircraft carriers equipped with fast jets, a move that could save billions of pounds, Whitehall officials said today.
The idea would be to have just one carrier holding US-made joint strike fighters, with the second, more basic, ship, being used only as a platform for helicopters and possibly unmanned drones equipped with missiles and cameras.
The two proposed carriers, the Queen Elizabeth, due to go into service in 2016, and the Prince of Wales, to follow in 2018, are already running £1bn over budget. The original estimated cost was £3.9bn.
Consideration is being given to cutting the number of joint strike fighters to be flown from the carriers, from 138 to about 50, saving more than £7bn.
The head of the Royal Navy last month conceded that the decision to build two large aircraft carriers could be overturned. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope said that though contracts had been signed to build the carriers, next year’s defence review could cause those plans to change.
Personally, I suspect that the final decision to cancel the carriers has already been taken, the government is just waiting for an opportune moment to make the announcement. Given that the rest of the fleet has been shrinking for years, eliminating the two carriers would allow the government to “save” an even-more-reduced Royal Navy from further cuts . . . until next budget period.
Vikings lose to Steelers, 27-17
It was a very competitive game, but the difference was penalties and turnovers. Minnesota had a touchdown called back on a tripping penalty (one of 11 total penalties), while Brett Favre had a fumble and an interception returned for touchdowns.
The Vikings couldn’t gain a half-yard when it might have turned the game, then watched the Steelers’ big-play defense end their unbeaten season with two long touchdown returns in the final 6½ minutes.
LaMarr Woodley’s 77-yard fumble return and Keyaron Fox’s 82-yard interception return on turnovers by Favre allowed the Steelers to turn back Minnesota’s repeated comeback attempts, and the Steelers rode three major defensive stands to an important 27-17 victory Sunday.
The anticipated quarterback showdown between Favre and NFL passing leader Ben Roethlisberger became a defensive duel. And the Super Bowl champion Steelers (5-2) — No. 1 defensively the last two seasons — are tough to beat in any game that’s decided by defense.
The Viking defence actually did very well in the absence of Antoine Winfield (who may be out for 4-6 weeks), although Benny Sapp had a couple of bad plays during the game. If the Vikings weren’t hurting for DBs, he might have been benched . . . but he worked hard after the mistakes. Sidney Rice continues to develop as a big-time receiving threat, adding another 136 yards after his career performance last week. Percy Harvin had a beautiful kick return for a TD, which put the Vikings back into contention, and Adrian Peterson had good combined rushing/receiving numbers, although he didn’t break 100 rushing yards.
Still, if you had to pick a game to lose, losing to the defending Superbowl champions in an out-of-conference away game would probably be the one to choose. Not that I’m happy they lost, mind you.
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October 24, 2009
The oddity of PJTV, Bloggingheads, etc.
Chris Taylor asks a question that has bothered me too:
Why would you duplicate the worst aspects of the medium?
I need somebody to explain the appeal of PJTV and Bloggingheads.tv. I thought this whole “citizen journalism” thing was about bringing greater depth, detail and context to the news the major media cranks out into the airwaves. Taking the time to write from a specialist’s perspective, to fill in the background that a beat reporter would not even realise they are missing. And all of that married to the ability to receive and remark upon news stories and opinion, anywhere there is a wired or wireless net connection.
The move to try and push this discourse into video from text is ridiculously misguided. The most compelling video isn’t watching two talking heads debate the issues of the day; if it were, the local candidates debates during elections would rival strip clubs for popularity and revenue-generating possibilities. Compelling video is watching the events occur, unfiltered; not having a vacuous talking head try to interpret the events long after they have actually occurred.
Exactly. I rarely watch online videos of the PJTV/Bloggingheads type, partly because I find them generally boring and partly because they take up too much of my time. If I’m web surfing on my lunch break, I don’t want to devote ten or twenty minutes to watching talking heads . . . I’ve got limited time, and the spoken word is far slower than reading the same information in text form.
Worse, sometimes the talking head is someone whose writing I appreciate . . . but their onscreen personality detracts from the message they’re trying to communicate. There’s a reason the mainstream media have tended to feature certain kinds of presenters for their news and opinion programs: they’re able to communicate in pleasant well-modulated voices, they appear dignified on camera, and dress well. They don’t fidget, they don’t twitch or scratch their noses . . . they’re performers in a specific kind of professional performance. Bloggers generally do not fit this profile at all: they’re writers and thinkers, not performers. And it shows.
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New cult
Lore Sjoberg has a new religion to offer:
There are many strange religions in this mixed-up, modern world — Discordianism, Pastafarianism, the Church of the Subgenius — but one of strangest and most popular is the Cult of the New.
People will pay more than twice as much to see a first-run movie compared to seeing it in a second-run theater or renting it and watching it at home. They’ll pay $50 for a videogame that will clearly be a $20 “greatest hits” game before too long.
They buy novels in hardback, comic books in their original run rather than waiting for the anthology. And then there are all those people paying $600 for video cards that, six months from now, will cost less than the shiny, full-bleed folding pamphlets currently being used to advertise the hardware.
It seems to me that the best way to instantly raise your standard of living is to live in the past. If you subsist entirely on two-year-old entertainment, and the corresponding two-year-old technology used to power it, you’re cutting your fun budget in half, freeing up that money for more exciting expenditures like parking meters and postage.
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“Controllers have a heightened sense of vigilance . . . post-9/11”
Maybe I’m just being hyper-critical here, but an aircraft being out of communication with air traffic control “over two states” does not equate with the claimed “heightened sense of vigilance”. Especially as “worried officials alerted National Guard jets to go after the airliner from two locations, although none of the military planes got off the runway”:
A report released by airport police Friday identified the pilot as Timothy B. Cheney and the first officer as Richard I. Cole. The report said the men were “co-operative, apologetic and appreciative” and volunteered to take preliminary breath tests that were zero for alcohol use. The report also said the lead flight attendant told police she was unaware of any incident during the flight.
The pilots, both temporarily suspended, are to be interviewed next week by investigators of the National Transportation Safety Board. The airline, acquired last year by Delta Air Lines, also is investigating. Messages left at both men’s homes were not immediately returned.
Investigators do not know whether the pilots may have fallen asleep, but NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said Friday that fatigue and cockpit distraction will be looked into. The plane’s flight recorders were brought to the board’s Washington headquarters.
Voss, the Flight Safety Foundation president, said a special consideration was that the many safety checks built into the aviation system to prevent incidents like this one, or to correct them quickly, apparently were ineffective until the very end. Not only were air traffic controllers and other pilots unable raise the Northwest pilots for an hour, but the airline’s dispatcher should have been trying to reach them as well. The three flight attendants onboard should have questioned why no preparations for landing were ordered. Brightly lit cockpit displays should have warned the pilots it was time to land. Despite cloudy weather, the city lights of Minneapolis should have clued them in that they had reached their destination.
I don’t know how involved a discussion has to be to get you to ignore your duties for that long, but if I were in charge of either air traffic control (ATC) or inteceptor aircraft for central North America, I’d be asking very pointed questions of my subordinates. A large commercial passenger aircraft should not be out of contact with sequential ATC points without some alarms being raised . . . yes, it could be communication equipment failure, but after 9/11, any unexpected communications failure with commercial aircraft should have raised red flags. The reported lack of scrambled interceptor aircraft implies either bureaucratic incompetence or criminal negligence.
As one or two people have pointed out, the flight was headed into non-critical airspace (Wisconsin, then Ontario), so perhaps the perceived need to scramble fighters was lower than if the flight profile had deviated toward Chicago or somewhere “important”.
Update: Doug Church of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association provides a clarification in the comments.
Update, 13 November: FAA indicates that air traffic controllers should have alerted NORAD much earlier than they did.
